


And Always Comes the Dawn

by MadameValadrien



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Animancy Not Going Horribly Wrong for Once, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Post-Canon, Recovery, Spoilers for Beast of Winter, Spoilers for Vailian Route, spoilers for game ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24953317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameValadrien/pseuds/MadameValadrien
Summary: After the events of Ukaizo, Vatnir and Watcher Yselt seek out a certain Vailian animancer who specializes in helping godlike. In a brave new Eora, maybe the will of the Beast of Winter isn't so inevitable after all.(Alternately: After helping his girlfriend save the world, Vatnir sticks it to Rymrgand by following the old adage that "the best revenge is living well.")
Relationships: Vatnir/Female Watcher
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	And Always Comes the Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Vatnir really got a raw deal on the whole "godlike" thing, didn't he? Sure, we got him off the Dead Floe at the end of Beast of Winter....but he's still trapped in a long life of constant pain in a body that's slowly coming apart, all because his divine dad is an abusive asshole.
> 
> Between what we learned about godlike from Pallegina's background, and the ending slides' promise of astounding discoveries to benefit all kith, I thought just maybe our boy could catch a break.

“You don’t have to do this,” Yselt said. It was at least the third time since they’d set out on this mission, but now that Neketaka was growing from a dark blot on the horizon to a discernible harborscape, she felt compelled to say it again. “And you certainly don’t have to do it for _me._ ”

“I know,” Vatnir replied softly. “But…I want to. I think. For myself.” He didn’t look any more sure of himself than he sounded; his bony fingers were clenched hard around the Defiant’s rails, and his startlingly blue eyes were looking everywhere but her.

“Besides,” he added more gruffly. “We don’t even know if it will work for me the way it did for Pallegina. We might be getting ourselves wrung out for a false hope.” He doubled over as his lungs were seized by something between a cough and a laugh. When he regained his breath, he finally met Yselt’s gaze.

“False hope _would_ be appropriate, for the Chosen of Rymrgand.”

She swatted his shoulder playfully, careful to avoid his bandages. “Don’t think like that. I didn’t rescue you from the Dead Floe just so you could give up now.”

His face pulled in what she had come to recognize as a Vatnir smile. Shyly, he brought one of his skeletal hands to rest lightly over hers. His touch was _always_ shy, when he mustered up the courage to touch her at all. This thing was still new between them, and despite her soft words and assurances that she cared for him, _wanted him_ , Yselt knew it was difficult for him to _truly_ believe it.

With another, it might have hurt. But her Vatnir had spent his whole life an object of fear and disgust; even their own people, the twilight-dwellers who revered him as a son of Rymrgand, instinctively recoiled from his ravaged body.

Yselt would admit, she had been taken aback by the first sight of him herself.

But in the course of their travels together, she had come to know the gentle, thoughtful man trapped in the mantle of the Beast’s Chosen, and affection had blossomed between them like flowers after melted snow. It was a privilege to have him at her side, and Yselt was happy to repeat those words until someday his heart could believe them.

Vatnir’s hand was cold, as always, and reminded her of the Land they had both tried to leave behind. Yselt brought her other hand up to cover his, as if her fingers could warm him.

“Part of me feels wrong,” he murmured. “I never chose this, never wanted it - in fact I’ve spent most of my life desperately dreaming of exactly what we’re about to do. I never believed it was _possible_. But now that it _is_ , now that we’re _here_ , I can’t help but feel guilty.”

“Don’t,” Yselt whispered fiercely. She reached her other hand to stroke his hair, gently turning his head so that she gazed into his clustered eyes. “You have _nothing_ to feel guilty for, Vatnir. If you want to be rid of the Beast’s chime, then that is your choice to make. Fuck the Harbingers, fuck the Land, and _fuck Rymrgand_. Your body belongs to _you_ , not him.”

He closed his eyes and leaned into her caress, his ruined face smoothed with bliss at her touch. “I would rather it belong to you,” he whispered, so faint she almost didn’t hear. “But you’re right,” he added more clearly. “As you always are. And even if this Giacolo can do nothing for me, at least we’ll know that we tried.”

Another one of those near-smiles, although there was a sadness lingering in his eyes. “And if hope is not the greatest rebellion against the Beast of Winter, what is?”

***

“Watcher, it is wonderful to see you again! And you must be the Master Vatnir that Pallegina wrote to me of. Come in, please, be comfortable.”

In short order, they found themselves seated in Master Giacolo’s kitchen with two cups of sweet floral tea. His apartment was a pleasantly airy space, but still managed to feel cluttered with bits and bobs of what looked like various research projects. Yselt suspected it was a universal trait of animancers.

“Master Vatnir, I am most happy you were able to come. I have devoted my life to the study of the godlike, but you are the first son of Rymrgand I have had the pleasure of meeting.”

“Hopefully I’ll be the last,” Vatnir replied. His rough, Ordhjóma-accented voice was a discordant contrast to the Vailian’s mellifluous speech. “I wouldn’t wish this life on anyone else.”

The old animancer nodded slowly. “I can imagine it is not an easy path, to be touched by the god of decay.”

“It is not,” Vatnir agreed quietly. It was silent for a moment; Giacolo merely sipped his tea, giving the godlike time to decide if he wanted to say more. A brief hesitation, wringing his hands around his own teacup, and Vatnir spoke once again.

“I can’t remember what it feels like to be healthy, if I ever knew in the first place. My bones ache, my skin festers…” he laughed bitterly, interrupted again by a fit of coughs. “And that’s just the parts of me I’ve managed to _keep_. I am literally rotting alive, animancer, and I cannot…” His eyes darted over to her, and then back again. “I cannot live to the fullest with those who are dear to me. And at the end, there is not even the hope for better luck when the Wheel turns. Only final destruction in the Void.”

He looked down again, as if fascinated by his own thin hands. “When I heard what you had done for Pallegina…”

“For a number of godlike,” the animancer corrected gently. “You are not alone in this, Master Vatnir, if it is truly what you want. But you must also know, you are much older than Pallegina was when I severed her chime. The results may not be as dramatic.”

“What does my age matter?”

Giacolo hummed slightly. “There is much we do not understand about the godlike, despite the efforts and study of animancers like myself. But we have observed that while godlike are identifiable from birth, of course, there is a change of sorts in adolescence. The patron’s influence… _intensifies_ , in a way, and often causes transformation. Do you recall if things were different, when you were a boy?”

“A bit, perhaps. The horns were smaller, of course. I was still always coughing, but I had need for fewer bandages.” His voice turned bitter. “And I still had a face.”

Yselt slid her fingers into his, her heart aching for him. Unspoken was the decades of loneliness that accompanied his physical suffering; even now, his hesitancy to touch her without specific invitation, to believe that _anyone_ could want him close.

Giacolo steepled his fingers. “This is in line with what I have observed in other godlike. Have you met any other children of Hylea, besides our Pallegina?”

He continued as they shook their heads. “I have seen a few others, in the Republics. Most have beaks as though they were birds, and their faces grow a full covering of feathers. That is the normal development for an avian godlike. When I met Pallegina, she was still a girl becoming a woman. Her body was undergoing the usual godlike changes and beginning to more closely resemble a bird, but the metamorphosis was not yet complete. Those changes reverted, when I severed her chime, and gave us the Pallegina we see today.”

“But you don’t know if it only worked because she was young,” Vatnir finished for him heavily. “This could be nothing, then. We may be decades too late.”

“I do not believe the situation to be so bleak. It would have been better, yes, if it could have been done before you were a man. We may have been able to prevent your disfigurements, and it is certainly a grave regret that we did not.”

The animancer adjusted his glasses. “I will be only honest with you, Master Vatnir. You are the oldest godlike who has sought me for treatment, and the only one touched by Rymrgand. I am not entirely certain what the effects of severing your chime will be. It is _possible_ your body will heal itself, to rebuild what was previously taken by Rymrgand’s influence.” He raised a hand to forestall Vatnir’s startled response. “It is _possible_ , but I do not think it likely. It is also possible there will be no effect, but I do not think that is likely either.”

“Based on what I have observed in other godlike, the _most_ likely result is that the Beast’s influence will decrease a great deal, arresting further decline and granting an improvement in your general health.”

He met Vatnir’s clustered eyes straight on. “I can sever the chime in your soul, but I cannot mend it again. Consider carefully all I have told you, and decide if it is enough. If it is truly what you want.”

Vatnir swallowed visibly, and for a sick moment Yselt thought that Rymrgand was going to win after all, that Vatnir would surrender himself to a long life of suffering out of fear or obligation to his cruel patron. But he straightened slowly, and gave the animancer a slow nod.

“This is what I want,” Vatnir asserted at last. “And it is enough. Rymrgand’s ‘favor’ has only ever been pain and despair. My…my soul may belong to him, after I die.” Yselt felt his slight shiver and squeezed his fingers tighter. “But while I’m alive, then, I want to _live._ ”

Giacolo smiled warmly at him. “Then come with me, Master Vatnir, and we shall see what we can do.”

***

Yselt wasn’t sure what she had expected from the procedure - a mass of wires and adra perhaps, or a spinning device sparking lightning. She certainly hadn’t expected it to take all of ten minutes, without a lightning coil in sight.

But that was what had happened. Giacolo instructed Vatnir to take a seat in his lab, gave him a device to hold, and spun a few dials on a device of his own. Only Vatnir’s sharp intake of breath indicated anything had happened at all.

“There you are, then,” Giacolo said with a smile, offering him a hand up. He took it, blinking rapidly.

“That was…that was it, then?” Vatnir sounded as though he didn’t know if he should be disappointed at the anticlimax, or relieved that he’d escaped the more lurid stories around animancy.

“That was it,” Giacolo confirmed cheerfully. “We have advanced the science quite a bit since I first severed a chime for Pallegina, with far fewer side effects. You experienced a pulling sensation when I severed the chime, ne?”

“There was _something_.” Vatnir stared at his hands, as if they might suddenly transform before his eyes. “I don’t feel much different otherwise, though.”

“You will, Master Vatnir.” The animancer’s eyes twinkled. “I expect you very much will.”

***

The first week after their visit to Giacolo was surreal. Vatnir’s nerves seemed strung tight as a drawn bow, and Yselt often caught him staring at himself in every reflective surface, as if searching for any kind of sign the procedure had worked. There was nothing discernible, not yet, and she knew he warred between the patience Giacolo had counseled and a despairing certainty that he had been too far gone to help.

For her part, she could only support him as she always had. So Yselt made sure her beloved was eating, and helped him change his bandages, and filled their evenings with rounds of the stone-pattern game that was the only thing either of them missed from the Land. And waited.

On the eighth day, however, all that changed.

The sun had dipped below the endless horizon of the sea, and they had retired to her cabin for the night ( _their_ cabin, Yselt tried to insist, but Vatnir would only give her that hidden smile and remind her that _he_ was not captain of this ship). It had been a long day, and she’d offered to try to knead some of the tensions from his shoulders. Tension that, she suspected, was largely due to his current anxiety.

She stroked his thin shoulders, taking warm satisfaction in how the clenched muscles around his neck and upper back yielded beneath her hands. Even _more_ satisfying were his soft groans beneath her ministrations, the way he arched his back to slip more of his skin beneath her fingers. Her lips curved in affectionate smile; her Vatnir so loved to be touched. Suddenly she stopped short, her gaze drawn to his shoulder.

He leaned back curiously, trying to follow her gaze. “Is something wrong, _kærasti_?”

“Not at all,” she answered, sure he could hear her grin in her voice. “Vatnir, _elskaðir_ , I think your shoulder is healing.” Yselt leaned in to get a better look - sure enough, the cysts that had been dark and angry on his left shoulder blade were smaller now, their color noticeably closer to the rest of his skin.

Vatnir took a sharp breath and stilled under her hand. “I do not heal.”

Yselt gently probed the area around the wounds. His skin felt cool and supple; the infection that had raged a few days before was gone. She leaned in and kissed the elegant curve of his ear.

“You do now, _elskaðir.”_

It took a week for the first signs that severing Vatnir’s chime had had any effect. Afterwards, it seemed every day brought a happy new surprise.

Changing his bandages had been something of a ritual between them - thrice weekly, Yselt would draw a basin in the privacy of her cabin, and help Vatnir carefully wash and re-bind the wounds that wept perpetually across his body. On the tenth day after, she unwrapped the heavy bandages to find all signs of infection had vanished, and the wounds themselves at last beginning to close. Vatnir stared at his own scabbing flesh, then back up at her, his clustered eyes round with shock.

“They’re going _away_ ,” he whispered, sudden tears spilling down his face. “I never thought they could.”

After another two weeks, he had no need of bandages at all.

***

Winter passed into spring. They visited Giacolo at his new lab in Ukaizo to update him on Vatnir’s progress, marveling at the changes the Vailians had already wrought upon the Lost City’s formerly-ruined streets. They drank too much at Pallegina’s sendoff party for her return to the Republics. They helped Eder and Beorn with repairs to Hasongo. They sailed a slow circuit around Crookspur, making certain the slavers there were _really_ gone.

As spring approached summer, Yselt ran out of excuses to avoid returning to the Dyrwood.

“The Dyrwood is your home, is it not?” Vatnir cocked his head curiously. “Was it distasteful to you?”

“Not…exactly,” she answered, watching the gulls wheel overhead. The seabirds were a portent - soon Defiance Bay would appear on the horizon. “Caed Nua was a fine home, if a bit empty.”

He leaned closer to her, letting his arm snake around her waist with a boldness he hadn’t possessed a few months prior. “Yet you do not seem pleased to return.”

“I’m not sure what I’m returning _to_ ,” she admitted. “Caed Nua is a ruin, again. Everyone I knew there is either dead or scattered elsewhere. I almost wonder if there’s any point to going back at all.”

“You don’t have to,” he said seriously. “Your life is your own now, _kærasti._ You don’t owe it to a pile of fallen stones any more than you owe it to the gods. You’ve paid your dues.”

She leaned back against him. “If I ever forget that, please remind me. But I _do_ need to go back, at least for now.” She sighed. “Even if the keep is rubble, I am still its Lady and Roadwarden. I’m responsible for the surrounding villages’ protection and taxes. If nothing else, I owe it those people to set affairs in order, even if I don’t stay.”

He nuzzled her hair. “Whatever you choose to do, you know that I am with you.”

She gave a contented hum and stroked his fingers - noticeably warmer than they had been a few moons past.

“How are you feeling?” Yselt asked, craning her head back to look at his face. It was an abrupt shift, perhaps, but she had nothing left to say about Caed Nua, and the feel of his hands brought to mind happier things.

“Better than I ever have, honestly,” Vatnir answered. “Do I look it?”

He did. The only signs of his once-ubiquitous wounds were the scars that marked his pale blue skin, like a map of sufferings past. He’d started to put on weight as well, and he was now more likely to be described as “lithe” than “skeletal.” Even his hair was healthier, growing in thick and soft. It was nearly long enough now to tie back.

“You know you do,” she teased, and leaned in to kiss his cheek. Sometime around when the last chill of winter fled, she’d convinced him to forgo his mask when they were on the ship. The crew all knew him by now, she’d argued, and she liked to see his face. Vatnir had laughed in disbelief at that part, but it was only the truth. She could see past his injuries, now - could appreciate his fine cheekbones, his expressive brow, his bright blue eyes.

He no longer looked frightening; he only looked like her Vatnir.

***

Yselt knew that Caed Nua had been destroyed when Eothas emerged from beneath it. She’d known that for _months_ , ever since she’d first awoken in that tiny ship in the Deadfire. She’d gone through the whole cycle - denial, anger, sorrow, acceptance - and had, she thought, made peace with what had happened.

Actually _seeing_ for the first time, what had become of her former home, proved her wrong.

Vatnir offered her his arms immediately, when the first choking sobs escaped her throat. He held her silently as she wept and screamed, her whole body shaking as if she might finally collapse like her castle.

All around them was rubble and dust ringing a massive chasm, all that remained of six years’ determined effort and centuries of history before that. And the people who had dwelled here - the merchants and cooks and servants and guards, who’d smiled and waved and chatted with her only hours before the end. They were dust and ash now too, without even the hope of the Wheel now to receive them. They’d all come here for her, one way or another. She’d led them to their deaths.

“You were right,” she whispered hoarsely. “You were right, when you called me the Duskspeaker. Chaos follows me, whatever I intend. And everything I touch is turned to ash.”

Vatnir made a sound of dismay. “Forget those words, _kærasti._ I knew nothing about you, and all I thought I knew was wrong.”

“The pile of rubble we’re standing in says otherwise.” A sob hiccuped in her throat. “Maybe entropy _does_ always win. Maybe Rymrgand was right all this time.”

His embrace tightened. “Rymrgand can choke on his own void,” he whispered fiercely. “He does not have a tenth of the power he thinks. _You_ taught me that.”

He leaned in to rest his forehead against hers, a rueful chuckle in his throat. “What was it Eothas said, right before he ended the world as we knew it? Something about how every night ends in dawn? If there’s anything I’ve learned from our time together, it’s that he had the right of _that_ at least.”

***

Rebuilding was slow.

The original site of the keep, she soon learned, was out of the question. Caed Nua had perched precariously above the Endless Paths event in the best of times, and the Paths had been built around Maros Nua’s vast adra monument. The excavation crews she hired to scout the area all returned with the same news: when the statue had broken free, the Paths had been hopelessly collapsed as well. Only impenetrable rubble remained of Od Nua’s great folly.

Yselt gazed down into the depths of the chasm, and remembered the tortured remains of those who had helped create them, and did not mourn. In a way, it felt as though the Engwithans’ ghosts were finally laid to rest.

But they _did_ need a place to live, and the Roadwarden of Caed Nua needed a seat. The first problem was solved easily enough; a brief visit to the ducal palace revealed that Caed Nua’s income had been collected and held in her absence, and soon she and Vatnir were ensconced in a well-appointed townhome in Brackenbury.

Her lover seemed slightly amazed at that still. “I know you _told_ me you were nobility, but…”

“But it all seemed rather abstract on the high seas, didn’t it?” Yselt laughed. “Truth be told, _elskaðir_ , it’s never quite felt real to me either. For the first year, I kept expecting my subjects to suddenly realize they were paying taxes to a ice-fisher’s daughter and rise up in arms.”

“An ice-fisher’s daughter who stopped the world from ending,” he answered teasingly. “Twice now. Maybe.”

“Maybe,” she agreed with a smile. “But I rather hope the Vailian animancers can innovate our way out of this after all. I’d rather not meet your father again anytime soon. Or ever.”

“On that we can agree,” he murmured, fingers warm as they traced her lips. “Never again would be far too soon.”

The problem of the keep, unfortunately, could not simply be solved through a withdrawal of funds. Yselt resignedly embarked on the process of selecting a site and an architect, petitioning the duc’s approval, hiring builders and endlessly reviewing designs, proposals, amendments. Their house in Defiance Bay became a kind of refuge, somewhere she could retreat from the responsibilities of managing the rebuilding.

They kept a minimal household, partially because their needs were modest and partially to keep small the number of people staring at Vatnir. Yselt had always avoided the aristocratic social scene, but she was well aware that the Lady of Caed Nua’s return, and the strange new consort she had returned _with_ , were the hottest gossip of the season. Exoticism surely played a part as well - she overheard the scullery maids one morning, in whispered speculation if _all_ male glamfellen had horns. She contemplated assuring them that they did, simply to see how many Dyrwoodans came to believe it.

She suspected the number would depress her.

Yselt also received and turned down invitations to dine with every noble family in Defiance Bay and the surrounding countryside. Let the rumor mill make of that what they would; Yselt had faced down undead dragons and angry gods. A few miffed nobles were of little consequence.

As time wore on, the novelty faded, gossip turned elsewhere, and Yselt and Vatnir were finally left to a measure of peace. All the same, it was a relief when, after three years of work, the new keep was completed.

She had intended to name it Caed Glamfel, after its mistress, but the locals simply called it Watcher’s Keep. It stuck.

The Watcher’s Keep was comfortable and modestly sized, nestled in a small wood near one of her larger villages. Yselt had designed it with a mind toward civic engagement, more than military might - while the walls were thick enough to repel ambitious bandits, more space was given over to public fora and trade halls. Yselt hoped it would provide her people with both protection and a voice, one that would outlive any single baron.

She had gone back and forth, on whether to include a church - after she had spoken, _argued_ with the gods, it seemed almost ridiculous to build a space for their formal worship. She’d settled on space that was decidedly _informal_ , just a simple chapel where prayers could be offered and rituals held. It felt less like petitioning a deity, and more like paying respects to a friend.

She and Vatnir were quietly wed in that chapel, their hands joined by a Berathian priest before an image of the Pallid Knight. Her people might whisper that Berath was an odd patron for a marriage, but to Yselt there was no other god more appropriate. Tradition be damned; she wasn’t on first-name basis with _Hylea_.

No god was more appropriate than Berath, perhaps, but there was one who came close. Yselt tugged slightly on Vatnir’s hand as they exited the chapel as husband and wife, drawing him towards the small shrine by the path. He followed with one of those subtle smiles, realizing what she intended. Carefully Yselt lifted a small candle to the larger lit one, waiting it until the flame took hold of its wick. She set the newly-lit candle back down on the shrine’s tiny altar, where it added its glow to the illuminated star emblem carved in its surface.

There had been much whispering about the shrine to Eothas, but none dared gainsay her after she famously faced down the god himself. Yselt wasn’t sure if there even _was_ an Eothas any longer, after what had happened at the Wheel in Ukaizo. But the Bright Lord had survived one annihilation already; if his spirit had survived another, well. He might not want to be worshipped any longer, but she suspected her little shrine of remembrance, for one gone but not forgotten, was one he wouldn’t mind.

 _Thank you_ , she thought, _for what you tried to do. I hope we can live up to your hopes for us._ She squeezed her new husband’s hand, and they headed back toward the keep.

***

Spring to summer to winter to spring. Life at Watcher’s Keep settled into a rhythm again, not so unlike her daily life at Caed Nua - except that this time, she wasn’t alone.

“Mm,” The bed creaked as Vatnir shifted his weight slightly, arms still wrapped tightly around her. “Don’t you have some dignitaries to be meeting right now?” He yawned, and made no move to release her.

“Void take dignitaries.” Yselt burrowed deeper against his side, scrunching her eyes tighter as if to fend off the rising sun. “What’s the point of being master of this castle if I can’t sleep in when I want to.” She really did need to get up to meet her guests, the trade issues they were here to discuss were important. But Yselt wanted just a few moments more cradled in her husband’s arms.

She felt him take in a breath, probably to remind her to be responsible or some such nonsense. She slid her hand up his torso in a slow caress and couldn’t help a satisfied smile at his soft gasp of pleasure, that he still melted beneath her touch after all this time.

Yselt slipped out of his grasp then, shifted to straddle his hips so that he lay beneath her. Vatnir gazed back up at her, his eyes half-lidded, and she knew she would get no more arguments about responsibilities for the moment.

She let herself simply admire him for a moment, delighting in how _healthy_ he was. The Vatnir she had met all those years ago at Harbinger’s Watch had been little more than skin, bone, and sickness - starved for touch and affection, and wracked by pain his every waking hour. The man beneath her would always be built slender, but now he was all elven grace, sleek with lean muscle earned from their years of morning rides and woodland hikes. Of the chronic pain and illness that had once ravaged his body, only fading scars remained.

Yselt felt the hardness pressed against her thigh, and grinned. Clear lungs and a healthy body weight weren’t the _only_ things Vatnir had regained by severing his tie to Rymrgand.

“You’re staring at me,” he murmured.

“You’re beautiful,” she answered honestly. He blinked those bright eyes back at her, then arched his back in a gasp as she reached down to stroke him.

They were late for their meeting.

***

The world’s eyes were on the Deadfire, and the Vailians’ new center of animancy in rebuilt Ukaizo. Animancy itself enjoyed an interest and legitimacy it had never before received in most of the world; as news of the crisis with the Wheel spread to every corner of Eora, the animancers’ new mantle of _the last best hope for kith_ lent them a sudden respectability even in the Dyrwood, where memories of the Legacy and the Defiance Bay riots were still fresh.

Yselt was content to stay out of it all. She might never consider herself _Dyrwoodan_ , exactly, but Watcher’s Keep had begun to feel like home after all, and for the time being she was happy to live a relatively uncomplicated life in the countryside. Or perhaps it was simply that home was wherever Vatnir was, and it felt like both of them had earned a turn of domestic comfort.

The weight of the world’s future could fall on someone else for a change; they had done all they could.

Nonetheless, they maintained correspondence with Giacolo. His infrequent but warm letters asked after Vatnir’s continued health, and told of animancy discoveries that came in leaps and bounds, breakthroughs for the good of all kith that would have seemed utterly unimaginable in the _before_. It sometimes seemed, he said, as if every curious mind in Eora had been suddenly lit with inspiration.

Yselt only smiled as she read those words, and lit an extra candle for Eothas.

The years passed quietly, and one day as she opened Giacolo’s latest letter Yselt was surprised to realize that he had been writing them for ten years. Even more surprising, however, were the letter’s contents.

“Advances in regenerative healing?” Vatnir reread the letter and handed it back to her, shock and disbelief warring across his face. “Do you think he’s serious about this?”

“I don’t think he would have written us, if he wasn’t,” she answered quietly. Her eyes searched his. “How do you feel about it?”

“Like it sounds too good to be true, and I’ve heard too many tales about animancers reaching beyond their limits. But…” his hand shook. “If it _is_ true…”

Yselt slipped her hands into his, and held his eyes. “If you want to do this,” she told him, “we can charter a ship _tomorrow_.” She leaned in and kissed the edge of his mouth, slow and tender. “But always know that to _me_ , you are perfect as you are. If you choose to try this, let it be because _you_ want it, not because you believe I do.”

He laughed ruefully and swept his arms around her. “Always you know me too well, _kærasti_. Very well, I will think on his offer. And I promise you, if I choose to accept it, it will be for my own sake.”

Five days later, their ship departed Defiance Bay for Ukaizo.

***

“Master Vatnir!” Giacolo’s voice rang with surprised delight. “Ac, I nearly did not recognize you!”

Yselt could say the same - the Vailian’s hair had gone fully gray, and the lines in his face were noticeably deeper than they had been a decade before. It was still always startling to her, how quickly humans grew old. But his warm smile was the same as it had been, as was the eagerness with which he hustled them inside for tea.

“I am pleased you were able to come,” he was saying. “I did not want to write to you before it was certain - we have setbacks from time to time, as you may guess. But there have been a number of successful procedures, now.”

“I didn’t realize animancy was concerned so much with the body,” Vatnir commented as his sipped his tea. He was outwardly calm, though Yselt could read the lines of nervousness in his posture.

“It has rather become so. That is the great work of our time, ne? To ensure that bodies have souls once the Wheel’s absence is felt.” He smiled wryly. “We have learned quite a bit about bodies in the meantime.”

“But you’ve _really_ done it. Used animancy to regrow lost body parts.”

Giacolo gave a single nod. “I watched a man who had been caught in an accident regain three fingers, just last week. I know it sounds impossible, Master Vatnir, but in the last ten years, we have accomplished a number of impossible things. This is simply the latest marvel to grow out of Ukaizo.”

The animancer’s kind eyes met his. “It was my great regret that we could not give you back what Rymrgand had taken from you, but merely prevent him from taking more. Now, if you wish it, we can.”

***

This time it was no ten-minute process. Measurements were taken, blood was drawn, adra-laced machines were calibrated. A friendly aumua woman introduced herself as the cipher who would help his body remember what it had been. Herbs were mixed and brewed, to wrap Vatnir in sleep while they worked. The lab’s alchemist assured them it was necessary.

“The results, you will like, ne. While it happens? Di verus, you do not want to be there.” Vatnir looked increasingly dubious about this entire affair, but he only thanked her and downed the potion before he could think better of it.

They let Yselt stay until his eyes started to grow heavy; when her husband’s breathing evened into sleep, she found herself politely escorted to a pleasant solar so that they might have room to work.

“Do not fret, Lady Watcher,” Giacolo assured her gently. “We will have him back to you soon.”

Yselt did plenty of fretting anyway, as the sun gradually sloped down towards the horizon. At last, Giacolo came back for her, triumph on his face.

She’d expected to return to the lab, but instead he ushered her to a small recovery room. With a soft smile and murmured “Some privacy, ne?” he shut the door behind her.

Vatnir reclined on a large couch inside. He turned, and six bright blue eyes blinked at her.

Yselt felt her mouth drop open. His nose was straight and fine, perhaps a bit too large to be classically handsome but a perfect fit to his face. His full lips were parted, as if in uncertainty. Somehow she knew that this was not the animancers’ aesthetic choices; this was _Vatnir’s face_ , as it had been before Rymrgand’s fell touch had injured him. This was what the cipher had meant, by helping his body remember.

Vatnir gave a self-conscious chuckle. “A bit of an adjustment, isn’t it?”

She slipped onto the couch beside him, unable to tear her gaze from his face. Her eyes kept drifting to his lips, and she wondered if they were as soft as they looked. His eyes flicked down to hers, and he leaned in.

They were.

“I’ve wanted to do this,” he whispered against her cheek, “since the moment you led me onto the Defiant.”

“It was worth the wait,” she whispered back. Yselt gently stroke his face, exploring its new contours. His eyes followed her hand, as if he needed to see it to believe it himself.

“How do you feel?”

“Incredible,” he told her. “A bit groggy still, but incredible. When they woke me, I could smell the herbs they’d mixed for the potion, the hot copper from the machinery. When they brought me tea I could actually _taste_ it, _all_ of it. I…I forgot just how _much_ things can taste. It’s as if..well…” his lips curved in a smile. “As if I’ve been half-blind for decades and now I can fully see. Which, is also true.”

He stretched, pausing to kiss her again. His thick hair had come free of its tie at some point and spilled now over his shoulders; Yselt reached between his horns to bury her fingers in it, drawing his face in towards hers. His arms went around her, and for a long moment they simply held each other.

“At some point, the Vailians are going to come check on us,” she finally said against his lips. He made a noncommittal noise and kissed her again.

“We _do_ have a room at a rather fine inn,” she reminded him, pulling back just enough to look in his eyes. Both clusters of them.

“Our room might be more comfortable than this couch,” he admitted.

“I was thinking that, yes. And less likelihood of interruption.”

“For that, _kærasti_ , I could be persuaded to wait.” He kissed her neck once more before drawing back. “But not too long.”

“Agreed.” Yselt stood and offered him her hand. “I think you’ve waited quite long enough already.”


End file.
